RavensDagger

  Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Two - Down With the Boss

  There were plenty of altars left to break, and the boss still seemed to be i health, even if I could see some burns across its chest where Amaryllis had let loose against it. I didn’t doubt that those had hurt, but they weren’t crippling blows.

  My attack earlier hadn’t done much, and the Fireballs had petered out almost as soon as they struck.

  The boss pulled its arm back, bits of stone from the altar ging to the limb and only falling off when water geysered out from the altar and spshed against it.

  Barely even a scratch!

  I gnced over to the side, noting the other two altars on this level, then back to the boss. Could I keep it distracted? It might not be super useful, but it would give my friends some time to do things.

  “Hey there!” I called out, one arm waving. “You missed me.”

  The boss turs head so that its one eye stared my way, and I quickly gnced away from the maddening swirling globe. It wasn’t time to lose my mind just yet.

  Shifting back, the boss raised its other arm, and presented both palms to me, like someone about to cp a mosquito out of the air, only in this case, I was taking up the role of the mosquito.

  “Oh, snickerdoodles,” I swore before both hands came rushing in towards me.

  I jumped to one side, sailing over the boss’s arm. I nded in a bouhat sent my sailing over the sed hand. That was a k of stamina gone.

  The hands cpped together with a huge , the water coating them spraying out every which way, exactly the way I imagine I’d get spttered if I lihere.

  “Bit rude!” I called out to the boss.

  Then, before it could do that again, I started running towards the altar, past a waterfall where one of the altars above had been broken. I saw Awen running by above, hammer in hand.

  “Hey, hey!” I called out as I bounced up and onto a sed altar. “I’m here, big guy... irl, I ’t actually tell.”

  The boss turhen swung an arm out at me, the entire limb going high.

  I hopped off the altar and ducked down, expeg to hear stone breaking, and I did, only it wasn’t the altar but one of the pilrs that had colpsed into a flurry of pieces.

  “Whoa,” I said. Then I felt my eyes growing wide as a fist came rocketing down where I was.

  I rolled to the side, the entire floor boung under me as the fist crashed down where I’d been.

  “Whoa!” I shouted. “Hey! Be careful!”

  It didn’t evehe altar. Annoying.

  “Leave Broccoli alone!” came Awen’s cry from above a moment before a bolt thumped into the boss’s forehead and stuck there.

  The monster looked up, then brought both hands up and through the floor above.

  I scrambled away as the ceiling colpsed arou least one big stone crashed into the altar, crag the top of it and unleashing a wash of water.

  I wao cheer, but that caught in my throat when I saw Awen stumble he edge, then trip.

  “Awen!”

  I jumped forwards, ign the monster’s arms as he pulled them back.

  Awen was falling, eyes wide and limbs scrambling for purchase even as everything tio fall apart.

  I reached out for her, but something hard and heavy banged my head. I grunted, but my hand still ed around something a moment before I crashed tummy-first onto the uneven floor. Rocks dug into my legs and hips where they skidded off my armour.

  The thing I held onto tugged, pulling me ahead a bit.

  I blinked, clearing the stars from my vision.

  Awen was suspended below me, one hand gripping her crossbow, the rest of her dangling down like a wet towel on a clothesline on a windy day.

  That’s what I held onto, one of the metal arms at the end of the bow, currently straightened a bit si wasn’t loaded. “Hang on!” I shouted.

  “I... I’m slipping!” she screamed.

  The boss growled and shifted.

  “Awen!”

  I could see Bastion and Howard running toward her from the floor below. They’d catch her!

  Then Awen slipped. She didn’t even yell as she tumbled right past the floor below and crashed into the water with a huge spsh.

  “Awen!”

  Howard dove in, a sed, smaller spsh right o where Awen had fallen.

  “No!”

  I scrambled to my feet, still holding onto Awen’s bow. I stared at it for a moment, then tossed it back. Where was my spade?

  Bastion paused by the edge of the floor below. “The altars!” he shouted.

  “Yeah—no! If we break them, they’ll be buried.”

  “There’s o above,” he said.

  “Right.”

  I spun around, saw my spade, and picked it up as I rushed by. I had to blink hard to clear my vision; it was very wet.

  The boss roared again and it bent down a little to attack my friends below. I was really, really not fond of this boss. The st altar was across the room, which meaher going around, or through the boss. With my current mood...

  My sneakers gripped onto the edge of the floor and I unched myself at the boss with the mea roar I could muster. I was kind of disappointed when my roar sounded more like a kitten yawning.

  The boss probably didn’t expeyoo deliver a straight, stamina-empowered kick right in its face.

  The boss had to be a huimes my weight, but I had a lot of miffed-off energy to bleed.

  Its face tentacles reached up, and one of them grabbed me around the waist as I was falling back.

  Perfect!

  I poured magito a bst of ing magic, a bst that would have been strong even before I hit Rank-S with the skill. Now the ball of swirling magic spun around like a snowglobe in a paint mixer, hundreds of motes of magic zipping around in a tight ball that I fired forwards into the monster’s face.

  The water wicked away, ahe boss’s face perfectly . It blis single now-dry eye, seeming fused.

  Then I fired more ing magic to the other side, and the magic tore into the roots filling the monster’s disfigured eye-hole.

  The roots melted apart, the greenish pnt-life turning brown before fading into motes of dust, and with them gohere was now an unfilled maze of holes left in the boss’s face that quickly started to bleed. The boss’s moan hihat it hadn’t ehat.

  “Amaryllis! Zap its face!”

  I saw my harpy friend, all wet and really annoyed-looking, running to the edge of the floor below.

  The tentacle gripping me raised me up, and a rger mouth opened up, the tentacles around it shifting aside like noodly curtains. The boss had a beak instead of a mouth, one filled with jagged, quill-like teeth inside.

  Amaryllis’ lightning crashed into the boss’s face, digging into its blubbery features and singing them bck.

  The boss growled and threw me towards its open beak.

  I kicked out, one foot oher end of the beak to pin me in pce. I flipped my spade around, and started hag at the tentacle holdih the sharp end while my free hand pointed down the monster’s throat. “Fireball!”

  The Fireball I cast wasn’t big or impressive, but it did bloart that dangly thing at the back of the monster’s throat.

  It screamed and flung me back.

  I kicked and flipped, only just managing to nd on my feet before I stumbled and rolled and finally ended up bumping against the far wall. “Ouch,” I muttered.

  I was oop floor, I realized.

  Shaking my head, I picked myself up, then took in the se. The monster was finally looking a bit rough. It was coughing and sputtering, and its voice was now all sorts h. I bet it couldn’t scream its mind-fy-y scream anymore, which was a great bonus.

  I started to run towards the st altar left on this floor, then I stumbled and tripped as the muscles in my legs twinged. I gasped and grit my teeth. I didn’t have time to be hurt. I had to help, and we had to save...

  Bastion fshed past the boss, cirg around the back of its head in a quick upwards spiral with his sword leaving a long slice wherever he passed by the mohe boss tried to swat him out of the air, but they were blind swings that Bastion avoided with ease. “She’s out of the water,” he said. “Break the altar!”

  “Right!” I said.

  Awen was safe!

  I rushed to the st altar on this floor, then whacked it with my spade. Then again and again, ign the soreness in my arms until a fountain of water burst from the stone.

  The ceiling above boomed, and I saw a crack running across the middle of it. Not enough t it dow, but a good sign. There were other cracks too, all of them meeting in the middle above the hole where the boss was.

  How many altars were left?

  I searched around, but there were waterfalls of water all over, and piles of broken stone where the boss had rampaged. Then I saw it, on the floor below, o altar.

  I wao jump to it, but I was a bit hurt, and I wasn’t sure if that would be clever.

  Instead, I ran as fast as I could manage, with a few hops for speed to the stairs, then dowire staircase until I was down a floor. I arrived just as Amaryllis and Howard came up from the sed floor from a stairwell opposite the one I was using.

  They had Awen, her arms throwheir shoulders and coughing hard.

  Coughi she was alive!

  I grihehe grin fall as I watched the boss. Bastion was doing good work distrag the boss, keeping its attention on himself.

  Good. I just had to do my part!

  I moved to the altar, bent over a bit, then shoved into it shoulder-first. I growled and dug my feet in, pushing as hard as I could until the stone shifted forwards.

  It crashed down with a heavy thump, and I earned myself a face-full of water for my trouble. I spluttered and stepped back.

  The water didn’t have far to go, the sed floor was already filled halfway.

  I was distracted from staring as a heavy k of rock spshed into the water, then another. I gnced up, then swallowed as the entire ceiling buckled.

  Bastion shot away from the boss just as a piece of the ceiling lohan I was dislodged itself and crashed into the boss’s head with a dull, wet thump.

  Dust filled the air, apanied by the sound of heavy spshing as more and more stone fell down.

  I spent a bit of ing magic clearing the dust around me away.

  Ding! gratutions, you have end-ritched the life of ‘Cute-ulu, the Psyche Fyer,’ level 10! For defeating a Dungeon boss, bonus exp is gained! EXP reduced fhting as a group!

  I felt my shoulders slump. That was it. There were plenty of other notifications, but I shut those off for now. I had bigger s.

  The water from the altars slowed, then stopped entirely, which I suppose helped a little. It certainly made things a lot quieter.

  “Awen!” I called out.

  “You know,” Amaryllis said. “I was in the fight too. I got all wet. It’ll take hours for my feathers to dry out.”

  I ughed as I followed her voice. If Amaryllis was being snippy, then things were probably alright.

  When I did find my friends, I crashed into them with a big, strong hug. It was rough, and I think we had some healing to do, but we’d made it.

  ***

  RavensDagger